Last weekend, I led a retreat for a group of women from my home town church, First Unitarian Universalist. Our theme was Creativity as a Healing Path. As the others explored creativity, I confronted stress I’d accumulated from work that simply does not feed my soul and the weariness of business travel. A friend who gave me a massage asked if I had whiplash my neck was so tight.

I couldn’t begin to explore creativity  as a healing path I feeling like this. So I did what I know helps me. A long walk in the forest. A good cry. A few conversations with trees and what ever animal swoops in. When I returned the retreat center, I wrote this poem, the first I’ve written in a long time.

Old Pine – New Growth

On my afternoon walk,
an old growth pine,
lies on her side,
needles fading green to brown,
chips of her body
rejoining the earth,
her fragile, hollow core
jaggedly exposed,
her mystery revealed.
I lay my hand upon her flank
“I feel hollow too.”
I tell her
“My old self creaks in the wind.
If I surrender
as you did,
what resurrection awaits my life?”
I pause.
I listen.
There’s only woody silence,
and the cries of two hawks
skimming the still standing trees,
and her rough bark
flowing beneath my hand.

© Laura D’Ambrosio